How To Debunk A Fact-Free Fox News Fearmongering Piece About New Video Game

from the a-few-options dept

I'm admittedly late to the game in discussing the (unintentionally) hilarious Fox News fearmongering attack on the new video game BulletStorm, that (among other things) quotes someone suggesting that it will lead children to rape women because certain actions in the games (which includes no sex) include "sexual" names. For example, shooting someone's torso off is called "topless," while killing a bunch of enemies in one shot is called a "gang bang." A bunch of folks submitted this story last week, but I only had a chance to read it now, and... wow. It's a "classic" in the almost totally fact-less genre of how video games will lead children to their doom.

Since I'm so late to the story, rather than directly going through all of the laughable (or downright false) claims directly, I'll simply point to three of the best debunkings that were done to show you how to properly debunk this type of thing:

There's the straightforward debunking, done by folks like Winda Benedetti at MSNBC, which calmly and rationally responds to many of the claims that Fox News reporter John Brandon made in the original review (or quoted people to make). For example, Brandon quotes Carole Lieberman, a psychologist, who claims that "The increase in rapes can be attributed in large part to the playing out of [sexual] scenes in video games." The only problem? As video games have become more popular, rape rates have gone down.

If that's not enough of a debunking, John Walker, over at the RockPaperShotgun blog went with a dig deeper debunking, in which he contacted folks quoted by Brandon in the article, and discovered (surprise, surprise) that Brandon appears to have selectively chosen his quotes in at least some of the cases, to make "experts" say something quite different than what they really said. Walker got the full email interview that Brandon did with Billy Pidgeon, a video game analyst with M2 Research, which Brandon uses to suggest that the game won't sell well, since people aren't interested in such violence. But that's not what Pidgeon said at all. In fact, Brandon mixed and matched parts of Pidgeon's answer to have him "say" something quite different than what he actually said. On top of that, Walker's research shows the way that Fox News approached this story, asking incredibly leading questions.

Update: In the comments, Patrick points out that Walker has posted another "dig deeper" debunking of Carole Lieberman's "research" to attempt to prove her claims. It's a long and thorough takedown.

And, finally, we have the absolutely epic takedown debunk, as done by Eddy at Botchweed, where he did a giant image of the entire Fox News piece, overlayed with his own commentary (including a chart showing the rape rates declining next to the quote mentioned above). Here's just a snippet of the image, but you should see the whole thing:

So there you go. When someone like Fox News publishes a ridiculously wrong and misleading attack on video games, three perfect templates for debunking.

Reader Comments

Re:

"The "rape rate" graphics is wonderful, but somewhat misleading. It is "rapes per 1000", not total rapes. "

It's not misleading. Notice how it's referred to as 'rape rate' rather than 'rape count'.

"Further, you have to consider the lack of reporting of rape, the acceptance of rape in certain segements of society as "normal", and related issues."

Yes, you do. For example, the there are serious questions (PDF warning) about the methodology behind the US rape reporting statistics.

"Not to support Faux News, they are lying pieces of left over poop. But sometimes people run to fast to slam them by doing the same thing that they do, misusing data. Sort of the Masnick Effect at war with itself."

While some of what you've brought up is correct, the majority of it appears to be a moronic attempt to make Mike look bad. Notably, how you keep insisting that the distinction between rape count and rape rate proves Mike is being misleading, despite the rate being the more appropriate statistic. If you genuinely care about the issue then please work harder to understand it.